Can You Test For Love?

[The Love Competition] follows seven contestants as they are placed in an fMRI to have activity in their brains measured as they try to love someone as hard as they can for five minutes. … It turns out — based on the levels of activity in the dopamine, serotonin and ocytocin/vasopressin pathways — it is possible for one person to exhibit that they can love someone more deeply than another person can. But what’s amazing about The Love Competition is seeing the participants talk about their loves and the effects the fMRI tests had on them. Many come out almost giddy when the test is complete, and one woman tearily explains that she just feels lucky for the love she’s had in her life.

The winner here might actually be the guy who scored the lowest. The loser, if you will. During the fMRI scan, he thought about his ex-girlfriend and their break-up, which absolutely devastated him. He scored the lowest. Yet at the end, he felt happy – ecstatic, even. "The guy who lost…was probably the happiest of anyone; he realized he wasn't in love with his ex-girlfriend," Hoff told Wired. "He walks out of there with his arms raised, triumphant."